


this dream isn't feeling sweet

by uanda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 12:16:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uanda/pseuds/uanda
Summary: Gamora falls, and yet, nothing happens.





	this dream isn't feeling sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Absolutely hated this scene. So I fixed it up.
> 
> Enjoy!

Sharp nails scrape painfully down the length of his arm, yet the pain is secondary to the sudden drop of weight from his hand.

Wisps of hair tenderly stroke along the underside of his arm, a parting gift, a final goodbye, as his daughter falls, down, down, down.

He can barely stay focused on her form, his eyes blurring as if unable to accept this fate, unable to accept Gamora’s death is simply one in a long line of sacrifices.  
Thanos can’t turn away, though. Her form twists gracefully in the air, arms desperately and futilely grappling in thin air. He watches, entranced. There’s a strange excitement mingled with the grief.

And then, she stops.

For a mere second, he wonders, will she rise? His resilient, deadly daughter is used to cheating death, being death incarnate. Surely… surely…

But there she remains. Still as stone, sprawled, limbs askew in an unnatural position, so opposed to her usual grace. 

Silence crowds across Vormir, snaking over Thanos and the ever-watchful guard. Thanos waits, cautious, for once. Patience greets him as an old friend, pushing back the whispers of achievement, of victory, with a subtle ease.

Time passes, however, and nothing stirs.

Not Gamora, not his guard, not the wind, or the snow that lines the curves of the mountain.

The stillness is drawn out, almost unnaturally. The everlasting patience that had so quickly presented itself was creeping back now, rapidly growing unease taking its place. Where was the stone? He had sacrificed all he had, his precious Gamora, the object of his love.

He turns to the guard, fury lining his face, his hand rising in anger, when Red Skull speaks.

“It appears,” he smirks beneath the hood, “that the stone has rejected your sacrifice.”

“What,” Thanos growls, “do you mean.”

Red Skull tilts his head to the side, considering. Thanos’ hand stays stock-still, poised and at the ready. Red Skull simply laughs.

“Did you possibly consider, in all your wisdom, that your love simply wasn’t enough?”

“I will say it only once more,” Thanos steps forward, each movement lined with a festering anger, and something else, lurking in the depths.

“What do you mean.”

“My apologies,” Red Skull says, a cruel laughter lining his eyes, “but I am only the messenger. I can imagine, however, that the stone finds your love… lacking? I believe.”

Thanos manages to spit out a word, or, is it just a query resembling a word? 

(How? Why? In hindsight, does it matter?)

“The stone judges all who seek its power,” the guard elaborates. “The sacrifice is to ensure that only those with the capacity to wield it can.”

“That means,” and here he pauses, his gaze searching out into the abyss off the edge of the cliff, as if recounting the numerous, endless explanations of this kind that have been given, and will continue to be given, “that sometimes, the stone merely disagrees that a sacrifice was sufficient.”

Thanos blinks. His hand falls, shaken by the careless, flippant destruction of his goals. The stone had decided. 

It had decided that he was not worthy.

That his love for Gamora was not worthy.

He struggles for a second to process, to reorientate. It had all been clear, his path, the necessary steps, and oh had he sacrificed everything for this. 

Where could he go from here? Find another love to sacrifice, another in an endless line, all in the hope that the stone deemed him worthy?

And for what? 

A dead daughter, dead allies, a dead future.

A dying universe, overflowing with no end in sight.

The anger returns, frighteningly fast. It surges through his bones, his brain, seeps into his pores and he roars. Spittle flies from his mouth as he clenches his fist tightly.

How could his love not be enough? 

He lunges, the stones in his gauntlet gleaming in preparation, caught in the reflexive reaction of coiled anger let loose, but Red Skull simply vanishes into the icy breeze.

The wind rises from the depths of the mountain, slides along the length of the gauntlet, past his ear, whispering, whispering, whispering.

(“What is love?” It asks.

his daughter’s broken form lies at the bottom of his mind

but not his heart.)


End file.
